Board refuses to sell to Christian school

The public school board has refused to sell a vacant school to the Heritage Christian Community School, citing an obscure 15-year-old policy that prohibits property sales to private schools because they would cause “irreparable harm” to the board.

The Christian school made an offer to buy the shuttered Wolford elementary school in August, offering more than the board’s $290,000 asking price, but the Upper Canada District School Board refused to consider it, according to Jennifer Feenstra, principal of the Christian school.

The board rejected the offer because of a policy called Schedule B, passed by trustees in 2004, which bars purchasers from using the property for a private school for the next 99 years. The schedule, which would be registered as a restrictive covenant on the property title, carries a penalty of $1 million if the buyer or future owners use the property for a private school.

Roger Richard, the board’s senior business consultant, said Schedule B is there for purely economic reasons to protect the public board from private school competition.

Richard likened it to non-competition restrictions that the private sector places on property sales. A coffee shop, for example, might prohibit its former location from being used as a coffee shop by a competitor, he said.

Each student that a private school lures away costs the public board $6,500 to $8,000 in government allocations, said Richard, so a loss of even 10 students means a lot of money to the board.

Feenstra calls the board’s policy pure discrimination, and she ridicules the notion that her 100-student private school is somehow a threat to the Upper Canada District School Board with its 27,000 students, 4,200 staff, 79 schools and $340-million budget.

“But our tiny school of 100 would cause them irreparable harm? It is mind-boggling,” Feenstra said.

Feenstra added her school, which is in New Dublin, has been growing steadily from the 20 students it had only five years ago.

The Christian school draws its students from a wide area including Ottawa, Balderson, Kemptville and Prescott, she said. It decided to search for a second location to keep the New Dublin location small, but give other families the option of a Christian education.

The obvious place to look was at the surplus local schools on the market after the public board closed them in 2017, she said.

It was while checking out the sale of the Prince of Wales School in Brockville that Feenstra learned of the Schedule B prohibition.

When the Wolford school came on the market last month, Feenstra said that her school decided to make an offer for the property on the day after it was listed, despite Schedule B. She said that school supporters hope they can convince trustees to get rid of Schedule B and allow the offer to be considered.

Feenstra paints the dispute with the board in biblical terms – a David-and-Goliath battle pitting her tiny school against the public board behemoth.

“We’re in a David-and-Goliath situation. If expanding Christian education at this time is in God’s plan then it will happen,” Feenstra said in a Facebook post. “Say a prayer that God’s will be done.”

She adds: “But like David we need to pick up some stones.”

Feenstra urges her school supporters to lobby trustees to overturn Schedule B and allow the sale to the Christians. As part of that strategy, Feenstra said Friday that the school would sweeten its monetary offer for Wolford to well above the board’s asking price.

Dana Purcell, a longtime activist in the public board, said the debate over the Heritage Christian Community School is eerily like the political fight over the purchase of the New Dublin location itself.

Fifteen years ago, the Christian school, then located in Athens, wanted to buy the New Dublin school that had been closed by the board, Purcell recalled. Trustees at the time refused to sell it to the Christians, even taking it off the market for a time.

But Purcell said the political storm that erupted, led by then-MPP Bob Runciman and others, eventually shamed the board into selling the New Dublin location to the Christians.

Afterward, the trustees passed Schedule B.

Now, 15 years later, the same thing is happening with the same people, Purcell said.

“It just seems wrong that these bullies are allowed to do this again. Morally it is wrong,” said Purcell, who emphasizes that all of her kids attended public schools and that she has no connection to the Christian school.

Runciman remembers the fight over the New Dublin School but he adds that his involvement was relatively minor, limited to meetings with board officials and at one point threatening to raise the issue in the legislature.

He suggested that the Christian school might have recourse through the courts or the Human Rights Commission if the board doesn’t relent on Schedule B.

Feenstra said she expects that the Schedule B issue will be raised at the next school board meeting on Sept. 11.